1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to work support methods, work support apparatuses and computer-readable storage media, and more particularly to a work support method suited for assigning work, a work support apparatus which employs such a work support method, and a computer-readable storage medium which stores a program for causing a computer to carry out such a work support method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, the work assignment for a certain work is made by assigning each worker based on job time information which is obtained from skill factors including proficiency and capacity of each worker, as proposed in a Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 10-261122, for example.
In a case where the worker is an employee, the skill management of the employee can be made accurately by holding training seminars within the employer company, receiving reports on qualifications obtained by the employee, and the like. In addition, it is to a certain extent possible to grasp the personality of the employee. Hence, it is possible to easily convert such information into numerical values and manage the numerical values.
However, the work format or environment is changing. Instead of the employee commuting to an employer company and doing the work, the work may be done by people called “teleworkers”. The teleworker is not an employee of a company but do the work for this company by receiving an order from this company directly or indirectly via an intermediating agent or the like.
The teleworker is basically not an employee of a company. For this reason, it is difficult to obtain accurate proficiency information of the teleworker and manage the proficiency information in the form of numerical values. For example, the proficiency information of the teleworker is based on information submitted by the teleworker himself to the intermediating agent or, is determined by the intermediating agent based on a work history of the teleworker with respect to the work assigned to the teleworker in the past by the intermediating agent. The work assignment to the teleworker must be made based on such proficiency information which may not always be accurate.
The work assigned to the teleworker is made based on a work contract signed between the company that places the order and the individual teleworker who receives the order. Hence, it is generally considered that the reliability of the work with regard to the quality and time limit of delivery is poorer compared to the case where the company places the order to the employee thereof or to another company. As a result, there is a tendency not to place the order of important work to the teleworker, thereby accounting for one of the reasons the work orders to the teleworkers are not increasing.